Doctor Who: The Defectors

The first play in the “Locum Doctors” trilogy, this starts with Jo and the Doctor being whisked away from UNIT headquarters on a top-secret mission. But the more immediate question for Jo is why the man claiming to be the Doctor is suddenly short and Scottish...

Aside from that key mystery (which isn't resolved here, being left open for the other two parts of the trilogy), this is in many ways a typical UNIT-era story. To emphasise this, it uses the '70s theme music, and the incidental music is also reminiscent of those episodes, without being directly imitative. The Doctor and Jo are taken to a mysterious island where it's clear from the get-go that something is very wrong, but that nobody else seems to notice.

In this respect, it feels rather like a spy thriller, albeit in a fantastic vein; The Avengers or even The Prisoner seem as if they might be templates. Indeed, the Cold War looms rather large in events, even if the explanation for events is very much science fiction. The mystery works well, with the oddities piling up, and there's a fair amount of action even after the big reveal. And then there's the question of what the Doctor should do about it, something to which there is no easy answer.

Obviously, however, the main gimmick here is pairing up Seven with Jo Grant, which is certainly an interesting change of pace. As often with these things, Manning's voice no longer sounds like that of a 20-year old, something which might put some people off. Mike Yates also makes an appearance, but it's only a cameo, as he's mostly off-stage, and gets only a few lines. But it's the kind of story I like, with mystery in a broadly familiar, but off-kilter, setting and a good dose of moral ambiguity. For me, this nudges it into five-star territory.